This qualitative research describes the experiences of college students from three different countries involved in a computer-mediated cross-cultural exchange project. English majors from National Kaohsiung Normal University in Taiwan, Obirin University in Japan, and University of North Carolina at Greensboro in the United States were participants of this study. The focus was on the Chinese students in Taiwan, whose cultural awareness and audience awareness in participating in the cross-cultural exchange project were investigated.
Six task types were developed for cross-cultural discussions in the project: introduction of the students and the campus, word story, special usages of words or phrases, tag questions, word-borrowing, and final remarks. The students were assigned to perform these tasks and post their findings, responses, and comments on an electronic discussion group, EXCHANGE, created exclusively for this project. Findings of the study showed that the students held a positive attitude toward computermediated cross-cultural exchanges. Their cultural awareness was enhanced through communicating with Japanese and American students. Students also showed a heightened audience awareness in their writing to foreign partners.
關聯:
Foreign Language Education in the Times of Globalzation Conference Proceedings of English Sessions=國際化時代之外語教學國際會議英文組論文集, pp.103-120